Football for girls pushed for 2024 Palarong Pambansa in Cebu City

Palarong Pambansa 2024 in Cebu City logo

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Cebu City Sports Commission (CCSC) Chairman John Pages pushes girls’ football to be included in Cebu City’s hosting of the Palarong Pambansa in 2024.

It can be recalled that Cebu City won the bidding against Antique Province and Negros Occidental in last month’s Palarong Pambansa 2023 held in Marikina City.

READ: Cebu City Mayor Rama on Palarong Pambansa 2024 preparations: ‘Kitang tanan, tabang ta’

Girl’s football pushed

Cebu City will host Palarong Pambansa for the first time since 1994 and 1954. 

According to Pages, they’re pushing for girls’ football to be included in the 34 sports disciplines which include the main sports, para-games, demonstrations, and exhibitions.

Currently, there is only the girls’ secondary futsal included in Palarong Pambansa’s regular sports.

READ: Cebu City is host of Palarong Pambansa 2024 

Girls’ football demo sport

Thus, Pages wants to include girls’ football 11-aside as part of next year’s sports. If it’s not approved, they want to request to include it as a demo sport at the least.

One of the reasons for pushing this is to encourage more young female footballers to step up and showcase their skills while being inspired by the huge success of the Philippine Women’s National Football Team (PWNFT) Filipinas.

The Filipinas etched history when they qualified and even logged their first win in the FIFA Women’s World Cup last month. 

READ: All the ‘firsts’ of the Filipinas in their historic Women’s World Cup campaign

Weightlifting also pushed

Besides football, Pages also revealed that they also hope weightlifting’s inclusion for next year’s hosting if not in the future.

Pages said that they’ve already contacted the Palaro secretariat, but it requires the National Sports Association (NSA) to write a formal request to the Department of Education to include it in one of it the sports disciplines to be competed. 

READ: Diaz: I still could not believe I won gold

No update on weightlifting push yet

There has been a long-standing clamor to include weightlifting in Palarong Pambansa and it got more serious when Hidilyn Diaz won the Philippines’ first-ever gold medal in the Olympics after topping women’s 55 kg category in Tokyo, Japan last year. 

Pages clarified that they were unsure if weightlifting would be included in next year’s hosting of Cebu City.

According to Samahang Weightlifting ng Pilipinas (SWP) official, Mark Aliño, their president, Monico Puentevella already requested it, but there is no update yet on its progress.

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